Opinion: I tried McDonald's new Triple Breakfast Stacks, and now I'm full of syrup, butter and shame

More than binge-watching all six seasons of "Jersey Shore," more than using the back seat of your car as a dumpster and more than eating your weight in Pop-Tarts, ordering a new Triple Breakfast Stack from McDonald's is a sure sign that you've given up hope.

Just ask the 20-something employee who rang up my order for Triple Breakfast Stack McGriddles at the New York Avenue NW location of the Golden Arches in Washington. When I asked him if he had tried the Frankenwich, he gave me a side-eye, as if I had just inquired about his history with recreational drugs. I laughed. He laughed. He then told me this downtown spot sells more Triple Breakfast Stacks at night than during the morning hours, which immediately made sense to me.

This is hammered-time food. You have to be drunker than Merle Haggard - or maybe just a food writer hunting for clicks - before you can allow this sentence to tumble from your mouth like a Las Vegas proposal: "I'll take the Triple Breakfast Stack McGriddles." The amount of denial required to place such an order is staggering.

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On Nov. 1, Mickey D's introduced its line of Triple Breakfast Stacks, the chain's first new, nationally available breakfast item since 2013 when the fast-food giant debuted the Egg White Delight McMuffin, the sandwich for folks who somehow decide to hit McDonald's for health food. (Potentially needless reminder: McDonald's breakfast sandwiches have been available all day since 2015.)

Then again, calling the line of Triple Breakfast Stacks a "new" item is like calling the Orioles the best team in baseball just because they switched uniforms with the Red Sox. Or something like that. I don't know. My brain's still clogged with syrup, butter and shame.

The Triple Breakfast Stacks are nothing new. They're basically customer breakfast sandwich hacks that McDonald's turned into a temporary line of items. It's good marketing disguised as menu innovation.

If you've ever thought that people who dine at McDonald's have warped taste buds, one bite of the Triple Breakfast Stack McGriddles will confirm it. This sandwich piles on the calories as if preparing you for hibernation: Two sausage patties, two slices of American cheese, a folded length of scrambled-egg loaf and a few strips of applewood-smoked bacon, all pressed between M-branded, syrup-flavored griddle cakes. A single Triple Breakfast Stack McGriddles contains 850 calories, 2020 milligrams of sodium and no self-respect. (The other two Stacks, one on a biscuit and the other on a McMuffin, won't endear themselves to nutritionists, either.)

If there was any hope for this sandwich, it was dashed by the processed cheese.

If there are two tastes you don't want on your tongue at the same time, they are the flavors of processed American cheese and pancake syrup. You'll hunt for the nearest antidote you can find, like an order of McDonald's fries. Or something left on the sidewalk.